Uber, Lyft get OK to do Tampa airport jobs

TAMPA — Getting dropped off or picked up in an Uber or Lyft is legal now at Tampa International Airport, and those ridesharing companies are paying the airport to do so.

The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority board of directors approved contracts with rideshare companies Uber, Lyft and Wingz Thursday morning to drop off and pick up passengers at the airport. In agreeing to the contract, rideshare drivers will pay a per-trip fee of $3 for each ride beginning this month.

The board approved a new user fee system to charge limos, taxis and rideshare companies per trip at the June board of directors meeting. User fees for ground transportation is used at many other major airports, including Orlando International Airport. The fees will rise each year, eventually to $5 a trip, in the third year.

"This is a whole new frontier for airports worldwide because of the growing nature of ridesharing," said board member and Hillsborough County commissioner Victor Crist.

Tampa airport CEO, Joe Lopano agreed.

"As part of phase two of the expansion, we're adding more lanes for curbside because there's more drop off activity than ever before," he said. "We've already seen a shift in revenue from this. We've seen impacts in parking, though not so much in rental cars. We'll have to find ways to deal with that. Diminishing parking revenue is something we've factored in already."

Taxi services will begin paying the user fees sometime early next year, said airport spokeswoman Janet Zink, after the airport finishes installing technology to track cabs to implement per-trip fees.

During the August meeting, Lopano also received praise from the board during his annual evaluation – but no pay raise, like in previous years. Lopano's annual salary is $393,824.02, per an amendment to his contract that went into effect in October last year. On April 5, 2018, Lopano will receive another 15 percent pay bump.

Lopano did not push for a raise Thursday, despite scoring top marks in nearly every category from every board member for a final score of 4.96 out 5 on his evaluation. That's the same score he made last year.